She fell asleep like that, holding Simon in her arms, and woke a couple of hours later to find his mouth skimming down her stomach to her sex. He made love to her with a thoroughness that contrasted with his earlier haste and then fell back asleep. Over and over he reached for her through the long night, until she grew concerned that one more orgasm might kill her.
Exhausted, she finally fell into a deep sleep, only to be awakened forty-five minutes before she had to be at work by a steaming mug of coffee and a fresh croissant from the bakery down the street.
“You’ll spoil me,” she murmured sleepily, reaching up to give Simon a kiss.
“Better late than never,” he said, his smile a little lopsided and sad.
Which she couldn’t allow—there was no room for sadness or regret in bed with them—so she pulled him down to her and did a much more thorough job of kissing him this time around.
His groan was all the encouragement she needed as she slid slowly down his body to take him in her mouth. “Amanda. I—” Whatever else he was going to say was lost as his hands fiercely gripped her hair.
She stroked his chest, soothed him and then did her best to drive him out of his mind. And judging by his retaliation, she was pretty sure she’d done a good job.
An hour later, she strolled into work, late for the first time since she’d been hired. No one said a word, and she couldn’t help wondering if it was because nothing short of Armageddon could wipe the smile off her face.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AMANDA GLANCED AT THE CLOCK for the fourth time in as many minutes. One more hour. All this week, the days had seemed to drag. The clinic was as busy as usual, but somehow knowing that Simon was waiting for her made the time creep by.
It felt strange to feel like this at her age, especially with a man she’d been involved with in one way or another for the past twelve years. And yet, she wouldn’t trade the feeling for the world.
“Seriously, Amanda, if your grin got any goofier, I’d swear you weren’t in possession of all your faculties.” Lucas shook his head in mock concern as he sat down at the break table to start his own charts. In the past few weeks, they’d fallen into a routine of hanging out together at the end of the day, talking about interesting cases or life or whatever else came to mind.
“Well, we can’t all be dour stoics like yourself, Lucas. But if my happiness offends you, then I will do my best to keep it in check.”
He laughed. “You know one of the things I most admire about you?”
“My incredible bedside manner?”
“Your ability to tell people to go to hell in the calmest, nicest way imaginable.”
“Well, it’s no ‘bless your heart,’ but I try.”
“And you succeed.” He waggled his eyebrows. “So, where’s lover boy taking you tonight?”
“Nowhere.”
“Hmm. He’s cheap, is he?”
That startled a laugh out of her. “No. He promised to help me tile the guest bathroom. We can’t really do that in a restaurant.”
“Touché. How’s your house coming, by the way?”
“Slowly. But it’s coming.”
“Well, if you and lover boy—”
“His name is Simon.”
“Right. Simon. If you and Simon ever need a hand, let me know. Since I broke up with Stacy a few weeks ago, I seem to have an abundance of time on my hands. Especially since I have another doctor on staff who has considerably lightened my load.”
“Yeah, well, it sounds like we need to get you a new girlfriend more than we need to give you a hammer.”
“Um, no,” he said drily. “There is no we involved in my search for lover girl. But thanks for being so concerned.”
“You know, my neighbor—”
He put his hands over his ears with a laugh and started saying, “La, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you,” as loud as he could.
“Okay, okay. I get the picture.”
“I hope so.” His eyes gleamed with interest. “That seems to be what people in love do. They try to set up others so that their whole world is bright and cheery.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do I look like the bright-and-cheery type?”
“Six weeks ago, I would have said no. But lately, yeah. You kind of do. In fact—”
He broke off at the sound of shots being fired. They both leaped to their feet as screams echoed through the building. Amanda rushed to the door, but Lucas grabbed her and slammed her down onto the floor. He was already reaching for his cell phone.
“Stay down,” he hissed at her as he dialed 911. “The shots came from our waiting room.”
“We need to go see if everybody’s okay,” she told him fiercely.
“You need to stay right here until we know if the shooter is gone.” Another shot echoed down the hallway. “There’s no use in you getting killed, too.”
“If someone’s shot, they need a doctor!” He held up a hand to quiet her down. The 911 operator must have come on the line.
As he turned his attention to reporting the shooting spree, Amanda managed to get to the door without him noticing. Still on the floor, she peered down the hall, trying to figure out what was going on.
Latonya was on the floor behind the desk, hands covering her head. The cordless phone they used for the office was on the ground beside her, and Amanda could only hope she, too, had thought to dial 911. It was so much easier to get someone to your door quickly if you called from a landline.
Screams rose from the waiting room. There had been three babies under the age of one and a handful of toddlers, as well as older children and adults.
The only mass shooting she’d seen had happened when she was working in Sierra Leone. “Rebels” had come into the village near the hospital and fired on whoever happened to be standing around. By the time she and the other doctors had gotten to the scene, it was too late. Twenty-seven people were dead.
Please, God, don’t let today be like that. Please, don’t let me walk into that waiting room and see all those people… She couldn’t even think the word. Instead, she started down the hallway, staying as close to the ground as possible. If she could see what was going on—
Another two shots rang through the clinic, followed by a bunch of vile words spoken in a rough voice. She heard the bells on the door of the clinic open and shut and then everyone started screaming and crying at once.
She was up and running and hit the waiting room to find three young men, dressed in gang colors, bleeding out on the clinic floor. For one second, she felt a blinding sense of relief—it was a gang thing, not indiscriminate shooting. The babies, the children, were okay.
And then, as she whirled into action, yelling for help, she got her first look at the boys on the floor—no way had the oldest seen his eighteenth birthday yet. Lucas came running, still on the phone with the police. Some patients rushed out of the clinic, while others gathered around to watch as she and Lucas assessed the victims. Two were dead, shot through the head, but one was still alive. He’d been shot twice in the chest and stomach and once in the head, but the last bullet had only grazed his temple.
“He’s alive,” she told Lucas, dropping to her knees and trying to assess his wounds. The boy was a mess, the pool of blood growing beneath him.
“We’re going to lose him if we don’t move,” Lucas said grimly, then called for a triage kit.
Lisa, one of the nurses, came running with one.
“Set up an IV,” Amanda told her, yanking on gloves as fast as she could. “We need to find where he’s bleeding from.”
“Where isn’t he bleeding from?” Lucas asked, but she was already probing the boy’s chest, watching as he gasped and trembled. There was an odd hissing noise and she turned to Lucas. “We need to put in a chest tube—his lung’s been punctured.”
“How do you know?”
“Get your head down here and listen,” she told him, even as she unwrapped the necessary equipment.
“You’re going to be okay,
” she told the boy, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. “I know it hurts, but hang in there. Let me do my thing. I’m going to take care of you.”
Even as she said the words, she prayed she wasn’t lying to him. Prayed that she would have the chance, the ability, to save him.
It had been a while since she’d had to insert a chest tube, but she managed to get it done pretty quickly. Within seconds, the boy was breathing easier, but it didn’t seem to matter. Judging by the damage, the bullets had ricocheted inside of him, bouncing off organs as if they were bowling pins, causing massive amounts of bleeding.
She and Lucas managed to get some of the bleeders, but by the time the paramedics arrived, the boy was in full-blown cardiac arrest. She started CPR, knowing as she did that it was too late. This boy, who hadn’t even started shaving yet if his smooth chin was anything to go by, had died on the clinic floor. He’d died because she hadn’t been strong enough, fast enough or good enough to save him.
She glanced at Lucas to be sure. He was already shaking his head. Taking off his gloves. She wasn’t surprised. Lucas’s practicality reminded her a lot of Jack, and she knew how willing Jack was to let a patient go when it was time. Just the idea of giving up hurt her, but the police were moving in, demanding to know if the boy was dead, grumbling about compromised evidence. Lucas helped her to her feet and she went, but she felt numb. Like Mabulu, this boy was one more child she hadn’t been able to save.
It didn’t seem fair. After eleven years as a doctor in out-of-the-way places, she had lost a lot of patients, sometimes as many as fifteen a day. But she’d never gotten used to it, had never been able to accept it the way other doctors could. She’d started practicing medicine in Atlanta because she’d wanted to work with people she could actually help.
Watching that boy die had brought her right back to where she’d been when she’d left Africa. Had brought home again just what a failure she really was. Right now, a policeman was probably telling his mother about his death.
She shuddered at the thought.
As Lucas led her away, she glanced down. Despite the gloves, that boy’s blood was on her hands. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to curl up and bawl like a baby.
SIMON WAITED IMPATIENTLY on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. He’d freaked out when it came over the wire that there had been a shooting in a low-income Atlanta clinic. When he’d found out that it was the one where Amanda worked, he’d jumped in his car and rushed over, calling her cell the whole way. She hadn’t answered, which made the rush-hour drive interminable.
The only thing that had kept him sane was the news that no medical personnel had been injured. But until he saw her with his own eyes, he wasn’t going to be satisfied. The cops weren’t letting anyone into the building right now—it was a crime scene—and he was about ten seconds from losing his mind.
Where was she? What was she doing? Why wasn’t she answering her phone? Desperate, he texted her again, and this time his phone buzzed within a few seconds.
I’m fine. Meet me around the back.
Relief flooded him. He sprinted around the corner and down the alleyway that ran behind the clinic. A cop was stationed outside, but before Simon could try to talk his way past him, Amanda opened the door.
His first sight of her nearly had his legs going out from under him. She was covered in blood—her shirt and pants soaked in some places and splattered in others. It looked as if she had been through a war.
“Simon?” She sounded uncertain, exhausted.
“I’m here, baby.” He opened his arms and she walked right into them, burying her face against his neck. “You’re not hurt?” He had to ask.
She mutely shook her head.
“Okay, then. Let’s get you home. Are you done here?”
“Yeah. I just finished giving my statement.”
“Good. I’m parked around the corner. Do you want to wait here while I get the car?”
“I can drive—”
“No, you can’t.” His tone brooked no argument. “I’m assuming the clinic will be closed for a few days?”
“I think so.” Her arms tightened around him, as if she was afraid to let him go.
“You can come with me,” he said. “The car’s out front.”
She glanced down at her clothes and moved away reluctantly. “No reason for me to cause a mass panic on the street when they see all this blood.”
“I’ll be right back,” he promised. “Stay here.”
She smiled wanly. “I’ll be fine.”
Despite her reassurances, Simon wasn’t so sure. Her eyes were blank, her skin pale, and he wondered if she was going into shock. It was perfectly understandable if she was. His own heart rate still hadn’t returned to normal after the horror of hearing she’d been involved in a shooting.
He sprinted all the way to the car, and was back in the alley no more than three minutes after he left her. Amanda was leaning heavily against the wall, as if it was the only thing holding her up.
She didn’t say much more than the bare minimum on the drive to her house. When he’d asked her what had happened, she’d shrugged, shaken her head. Then told him in very clinical terms everything that had happened. His heart had bled for her, even as he’d felt a sense of relief at finally knowing what had tripped Amanda out so bad.
She was mourning the boy she couldn’t save. When a patient died, it always hit her hard, but when she thought she’d had a chance of saving him and he died anyway…she’d never found a way to cope. Some doctors drank, some had indiscriminate sex, some played basketball. Amanda brooded, going over everything she’d done again and again and again, looking for the one thing that might have changed the outcome.
Once he got her upstairs, he sent her into the shower and then went back down to make her some soup and a pot of the herbal tea she liked. He was done before she was, so he put the food on a makeshift tray and carried it upstairs to her.
The shower was still running.
Concerned, he went into the bathroom and found her on the shower floor, knees drawn up to her chest as the water pounded over her.
“Amanda!” He ran to her, yanked the glass door open with one hand while he turned the ice-cold water off with the other. The house’s ancient water heater was obviously not up to marathon sessions.
“Come on, baby, let’s get you out of there.”
She didn’t answer, so he pulled her to her feet and briskly dried her off before guiding her into the bedroom and sliding the worn T-shirt she liked to sleep in over her head.
“He was so scared when I got to him. I knew he was in bad shape, but I told him he was going to be okay.”
“You did what anybody would do.”
“Maybe I placed the chest tube wrong. Maybe I went for the wrong bleeder. I don’t know.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
It was as if he hadn’t spoken. “There was so much blood. I could have missed something—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He was just a kid. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t get to him fast enough. I stayed in the hallway, hiding. If I’d gotten to him sooner—”
“If you’d gotten there sooner, you might be dead. Amanda, I know it hurts, but you can’t do this to yourself.”
She stopped talking then, but he didn’t know if he’d gotten through to her.
Sighing, he walked her over to the bed and got her under the covers, though it was only about nine o’clock.
“I was planning to work on the bathroom tonight,” she said plaintively, and it was so off-topic, so unexpected, that he almost burst out laughing.
She was going to be okay. She might not be ready to let the boy go, but mentioning the remodeling was her way of saying that she knew life went on.
“The bathroom can wait until the weekend.”
She sighed. “I guess.”
He slid the tray over her lap. “Here. Eat your soup.”
&
nbsp; He wasn’t asking and for once she didn’t argue. Instead, she shrugged and lifted the spoon to her lips.
When she was finished, she slid down the pillows and pulled the covers up to her chin. “Stay with me?” she asked.
“As long as you want.”
Amanda smiled at that. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Simon.”
He started to argue with her, but she turned the light off before he could even begin to mount a defense. “I’m not going anywhere, Amanda,” he said fiercely, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his chest.
She didn’t answer.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AMANDA WOKE ALONE, though when she rolled over she could still smell Simon on the sheets next to her.
Sitting up, she squinted against the bright sunlight and tried to figure out what time it was. The clinic was closed for the next three days at least, until the police finished their investigation, so she didn’t have anywhere she needed to be. Which was a problem, because the desire to pull the covers over her head and burrow in was almost overwhelming.
She forced herself to get out of bed. She’d made a promise that she wasn’t going to hide anymore, wasn’t going to give in to the bad days, and she didn’t intend to break it.
Slipping a robe over her nightshirt, she went in search of Simon. She hoped he hadn’t left for work already. She wanted to talk to him, to thank him for taking care of her last night when she’d been so out of it.
She needed to do better. She knew that. But since Gabby, she’d had a horrible time dealing with her patients’ deaths—especially the young ones. She knew their parents’ grief, and it was hard for her to separate herself from it. She’d have to learn to cope or stop practicing medicine, but for now she was going to give herself a break. When she was better, when she’d healed some more, she would deal with it. Until then, she’d concentrate on doing what she’d been doing.
As she walked down the hall, she heard a noise coming from the bathroom below. A noise that sounded very much like a saw. She hotfooted it down there, then watched in disbelief as Simon nailed the baseboards into the wall opposite the sink.